PATERFAMILIAS, GUERNSEY, MONA.
When I returned in the autumn of 1855 from my principal continental
tour, wherein for three months I had conducted my whole family of eleven
(servants inclusive) all through the usual route of French and Swiss
travel,--I committed my journal to Hatchard, who forthwith published it;
but not to any signal success,--for it was anonymous, which was a
mistake: however, I did not care to make public by name all the daily
details of my homeflock pilgrimage. The pretty little book with its fine
print of the Pass of Gondo as a frontispiece, nevertheless made its way,
and has been inserted in Mr. Gregory's list of guide-books as a
convenience if not a necessity to travellers on the same roads, though
in these days of little practical use: indeed, wherever we stopped, I
contrived to exhaust, on the spot all that was to be seen or done, with
the advantages of personal inspection, and therefore of graphic and true
description. The book has been praised for its interest and includes
divers accidents, happily surmounted, divers exploits in the milder form
of Alpine climbing (as the Mauvais Pas, which I touch experimentally at
the end of Life's Lessons, in "Proverbial Philosophy," Series IV.),
divers grand sights, as the Great Exhibition, close to which we lived
for some weeks in the Champs Élysées, and many pleasant incidents, as
greetings with friends, old and new, and other usual _memorabilia_.
Among these let me mention the honest kindliness of Courier
Pierre,--always called Pere by my children, with whom he was a great
favourite--the more readily because he has long gone to "the bourne
whence no traveller returns," so he needs no recommendation from his
late employer. This, then, I say is memorable. At Lucerne, as my
remittance from Herries failed to reach me, I seemed obliged to make a
stop and to return; but Pierre objected, saying it was "great pity not
to pass the Simplon and see Milan,--and, if Monsieur would permit him,
he could lend whatever was needful, and could be paid again." Certainly
I said this was very kind, and so I borrowed at his solicitation:--it
was £100, as I find by the journal; our travel was costing us £40 a
week. Well, to recount briefly, when, after having placed in our
_repertoire_ Bellinzona, Como, Milan, &c. &c., I found myself at Geneva,
and with remittances awaiting me, my first act was to place in Pierre's
hands £105,--and when he counted the notes, he said, "Sare, there is one
five-pound too many."--"Of course, my worthy Pierre, I hope you will
accept that as interest."--"Non, Monsieur, pardon; I could not, I always
bring money to help my families:"--and he would not. Now, if that was
not a model courier, worthy to be commemorated thus,--well, I hope there
are some others of his brethren on the office-books of Bury Street, St.
James's, who are equally duteous and disinterested. "Some people are
heroes to their valets; my worthy help is a hero to me:" so saith my
journal. Here's another extract, after two slight earthquakes at Brieg,
and Turtman (Turris Magna);--"Again a bad accident. One of our spirited
wheelers got his hind leg over the pole in going down a hill: at once
there was a chaos of fallen horses and entangled harness, and but for
the screw machine drag locking both hind-wheels we must have been upset
and smashed,--as it was, the scrambling and kicking at first was
frightful; but Paterfamilias dragged the younger children out into the
road, and other help was nigh at hand, and the providential calm that
comes over fallen horses after their initiatory struggle was at hand
too, and in due time matters were righted: that those two fiery
stallions did not kick everything to pieces, and that all four steeds
did not gallop us to destruction, was due, under Providence, to the
skill and courage of our good Pierre and the patient
Muscatelli."--Railways have since superseded all this peril, and cost,
and care: and trains now go _through_ the Simplon, instead of "good
horses, six to the heavy carriage, four to the light one," pulling us
steadily and slowly _over_ it: thus losing the splendid scenery climaxed
by the Devil's Bridge: but let moderns be thankful. "Paterfamilias's
Diary" has long been out of print, and its author is glad that he made
at the time a full record of the happy past, and recommends its perusal
to any one who can find a copy anywhere. My friend, the late Major Hely,
who claimed an Irish peerage, was very fond of this "Diary," and thought
it "the best book of travels he had ever read."
Guernsey.
Guernsey is another of the spots where your author has lived and
written, though neither long nor much. He comes, as is well known, of an
ancient Sarnian family, as mentioned before. As to any writings of mine
about insular matters while sojourning there occasionally, they are
confined to some druidical verses about certain cromlechs, a few other
poems, as one given below--"A Night-Sail in the Race of Alderney,"--and
in chief that in which I "Raised the Haro," which saved the most
picturesque part of Castle Cornet from destruction by some artillery
engineer. Here is the poem, supposing some may wish to see it:
especially as it does not appear in my only extant volume of poems, Gall
& Inglis. It occurs (I think solely) in Hall & Virtue's extinct edition
of my Ballads and Poems, 1853, and is there headed "'The Clameur de
Haro,' an old Norman appeal to the Sovereign, 1850":--
"Haro, Haro! à l'aide, mon Prince!
A loyal people calls;
Bring out Duke Rollo's Norman lance
To stay destruction's fell advance
Against the Castle walls:
Haro, Haro! à l'aide, ma Reine!
Thy duteous children not in vain
Plead for old Cornet yet again,
To spare it, ere it falls!
"What? shall Earl Rodolph's sturdy strength,
After six hundred years, at length
Be recklessly laid low?
His grey machicolated tower
Torn down within one outraged hour
By worse than Vandals' ruthless power?--
Haro! à l'aide, Haro!
"Nine years old Cornet for the throne
Against rebellion stood alone--
And honoured still shall stand,
For heroism so sublime,
A relic of the olden time,
Renowned in Guernsey prose and rhyme,
The glory of her land!
"Ay,--let your science scheme and plan
With better skill than so;
Touch not this dear old barbican,
Nor dare to lay it low!
"On Vazon's ill-protected bay
Build and blow up, as best ye may,
And do your worst to scare away
Some visionary foe,--
But, if in brute and blundering power
You tear down Rodolph's granite tower,
Defeat and scorn and shame that hour
Shall whelm you like an arrowy shower--
Haro! à l'aide, Haro!"
When my antiquarian cousin Ferdinand, the historian of "Sarnia" and our
"Family Records," saw these lines, he positively made serious
objection--while generally approving them--against my saying "six
hundred years," whereas, according to him, it was only five hundred and
ninety-three! he actually wanted me to alter it, or at all events insert
"almost,"--so difficult is it to reconcile literal accuracy with
poetical rhyme and rhythm. I seem to remember that he wrote to the local
papers about this. However, it is some consolation to know that these
heartfelt verses forced the War Office to spare Castle Cornet: the
Norman appeal by Haro being a privilege of Channel-Islanders to bring
their grievances direct to the Queen in council. As I have continually
the honour "Monstrari digito prætereuntium" in the _rôle_ of a
"Fidicen," I suppose that poetries in such a self-record as this are not
positive bores--they can always be skipped if they are--so I will even
give here a cheerful bit of rhyme which I jotted down at midnight on the
deck of a yacht in a half-gale off Cherbourg, when going with a
deputation from Guernsey to meet the French President in 1850:--
_A Night-Sail in the Race of Alderney._
I.
"Sprinkled thick with shining studs
Stretches wide the tent of heaven,
Blue, begemmed with golden buds,--
Calm, and bright, and deep, and clear,
Glory's hollow hemisphere
Arch'd above these frothing floods
Right and left asunder riven,
As our cutter madly scuds,
By the fitful breezes driven,
When exultingly she sweeps
Like a dolphin through the deeps,
And from wave to wave she leaps
Rolling in this yeasty leaven,--
Ragingly that never sleeps,
Like the wicked unforgiven!
II.
"Midnight, soft and fair above,
Midnight, fierce and dark beneath,--
All on high the smile of love,
All below the frown of death:
Waves that whirl in angry spite
With a phosphorescent light
Gleaming ghastly on the night,--
Like the pallid sneer of Doom,
So malicious, cold, and white,
Luring to this watery tomb,
Where in fury and in fright
Winds and waves together fight
Hideously amid the gloom,--
As our cutter gladly sends,
Dipping deep her sheeted boom
Madly to the boiling sea,
Lighted in these furious floods
By that blaze of brilliant studs,
Glistening down like glory-buds
On the Race of Alderney!"
A few more words as to my Sarnian literaria. Victor Hugo, when resident
in Guernsey, had greatly offended my cousin (the chief of our clan) by
stealing for his hired abode the title of our ancestral mansion, Haute
Ville House: and so, when I called on him, the equally offended
Frenchman would not see me, though I was indulged with a sight of the
_bric-à-brac_ wherewith he had filled his residence, albeit deprived of
access to its inmate. Hugo was not popular among the sixties at that
time. Since then, Mr. Sullivan of Jersey published on his decease some
splendid stanzas in French, which by request I versified in English: so
that our spirits are now manifestly _en rapport_.
I wrote also (as I am reminded) an ode on the consecration of St.
Anne's, Alderney, when I accompanied the Bishop to the ceremony: and
some memorable stanzas about the decent expediency of the Bailiff and
Jurats being robed for official uniform, since ornamentally adopted; but
before I wrote they wore mean and undistinguished "mufti."
I had also much to do on behalf of my friend Durham, the sculptor, in
the matter of his bronze statue to Prince Albert,--advocating it both in
prose and verse, and being instrumental in getting royal permission to
take a duplicate of the great work now at South Kensington. My cousin
the Bailiff, the late Sir Stafford Carey, dated his knighthood from the
inauguration of the statue, now one of the chief ornaments of St.
Peter's Port,--the other being the Victoria Tower, also a Sarnian
exploit.
Isle of Man.
Under such a title as this, "My Life as an Author," that author being
chiefly known for his poetry, though he has also written plenty of
prose, it is (as I have indeed just said) not to be reasonably objected
that the volume is spotted with small poems. Still, I must do it, if I
wish to illustrate by verse, or other extracts from my writings
(published or unprinted), certain places where the said author has had
his temporary _habitat_: now one of these is the Isle of Man,--where I
and mine made a long summer stay at Castle Mona. The chief literary
productions of mine in that modern Trinacria, whose heraldic emblem,
like that of ancient Sicily, is the Three legs of Three promontories,
are some antiquarian pieces, principally one on the sepulchral mound of
Orry the Dane:--
"In fifty keels and five
Rushed over the pirate swarm,
Hornets out of the northern hive,
Hawks on the wings of the storm;
Blood upon talons and beak,
Blood from their helms to their heels,
Blood on the hand and blood on the cheek,--
In five and fifty keels!
"O fierce and terrible horde
That shout about Orry the Dane,
Clanging the shield and clashing the sword
To the roar of the storm-tost main!
And hard on the shore they drive
Ploughing through shingle and sand,--
And high and dry those fifty and five
Are haul'd in line upon land.
"And ho! for the torch straightway,
In honour of Odin and Thor,--
And the blazing night is as bright as the day
As a gift to the gods of war;
For down to the melting sand
And over each flaring mast
Those fifty and five they have burnt as they stand
To the tune of the surf and the blast!
"A ruthless, desperate crowd,
They trample the shingle at Lhane,
And hungry for slaughter they clamour aloud
For the Viking, for Orry the Dane!
And swift has he flown at the foe--
For the clustering clans are here,--
But light is the club and weak is the bow
To the Norseman sword and spear:
"And--woe to the patriot Manx,
The right overthrown by the wrong,--
For the sword hews hard at the staggering ranks,
And the spear drives deep and strong:
And Orry the Dane stands proud
King of the bloodstained field,
Lifted on high by the shouldering crowd
On the battered boss of his shield!
"Yet, though such a man of blood,
So terribly fierce and fell,
King Orry the Dane had come hither for good,
And governed the clans right well;
Freedom and laws and right,
He sowed the good seed all round--
And built up high in the people's sight
Their famous Tynwald Mound;
"And elders twenty and four
He set for the House of Keys,
And all was order from shore to shore
In the fairest Isle of the Seas:
Though he came a destroyer, I wist
He remained as a ruler to save,
And yonder he sleeps in the roadside kist
They call King Orry's Grave."
It was at Castle Mona that I first met Walter Montgomery, who read these
very lines to great effect at one of his Recitations, and thereafter
produced at Manchester my play of "Alfred." He was, amongst other
accomplishments, a capital horseman, and when he galloped over the sands
on his white horse, he would jump benches with their sitters, calling
out "Don't stir, we shall clear you!" It would have required no small
coolness and courage to have abided his charge, and though I saw him do
this once, I question if he was allowed to repeat the exploit.
In Douglas was also my artist-friend Corbould, visiting at the romantic
place of his relatives the Wilsons, who had to show numerous paintings
and relics of John Martin, with whom in old days I had pleasant
acquaintance at Chelsea and elsewhere. I remember that on one occasion
when I asked him which picture of his own he considered his
_chef-d'oeuvre_ I was astonished at his reply, "Sardanapalus's
death,--and therein his jewels." Martin's Chelsea garden had its walls
frescoed by him to look like views and avenues,--certainly effective,
but rather in the style of Grimaldi's garden made gay by artificial
flowers and Aladdin's gems, _à la mode_ Cockayne. At Bishop's Court too
we had a very friendly reception from Bishop Powys, and in fact
everywhere as usual your confessor found a cordial author's welcome in
Mona.